


Soft Lights and Social Cues

by Piehead



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Parse Posi Posse Inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 23:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piehead/pseuds/Piehead
Summary: Nursey wakes up to a twitter DM from Kent Parson. Who knew you could fall for someone just from the way they analyzed your book?





	Soft Lights and Social Cues

**Author's Note:**

> This was thought up entirely in the Parse Posi Posse Discord. Kent/Nursey was mentioned and I couldn't NOT write this.

Picture this.

Nursey wakes up one morning in his New York apartment. It's been a few months since he’s published his third novel. It's already risen to the top of the New York Times best seller list but it's also considered "controversial" because it addresses racial discrimination and social issues at certain points. He putters around his apartment, makes his coffee and gets ready for the day, and just so happens to check his twitter.

As expected, his DMs are full of people. From folks hitting him with slurs (he's used to them) to people declaring their love for him (a lot of it is more for his books, he doubted they would enjoy the _real_ him). He's scrolling, blocking and deleting folks that are talking shit while sipping his coffee and sending happy emojis and messages to people who say they like his book.

When he gets down the line, he pauses, when he sees a DM from around midnight. It's from _therealkentparson_ and Nursey is a little surprised to see it. He opens the DM, starts reading, and nearly drops his coffee when he finds a full analysis from a chapter of his book (that happened to be about toxic masculinity and how it affects social interactions and expectations). Nursey immediately opens the twitter page. It's verified.

"Holy shit," he says to himself, because Kent Parson _actually_ sent him a complete analysis of his book. There were quotations and citations from key points Parson thought were important to note. It's not some "Hey, I liked this part and thought this about it." It's "This made me think about these things and I wanted to talk a bit about the comparisons you made." It's thoughtful. It's mindful. It's amazing. It's from _Kent Parson_.

Nursey doesn't know what to do with himself for a moment. It's early in New York, meaning it's even _earlier_ in Vegas, so he doesn't know if he wants to send a message back. He's getting to the bottom of the analysis when he comes across a message that says, "lol at least that's what I thought. Sorry if I read it wrong," and Nursey wants to go _nonononono you did fine_ because it's that kind of critical thinking he was hoping to inspire when he wrote the parts of his book Kent’s addressed.

So, Nursey grabs his laptop and pops it open. He starts typing up a response; something to send back thats calculated and thought out. When folks talk about his book, he wants it to be a discussion, after all. So when he finally finishes crafting his response, it's around noon. He forewent breakfast in favor of responding. Nursey hesitates a moment before he hits send, wondering if this is something he should be doing, but he presses the enter button anyway. The message is gone before Nursey can think too hard and stop himself.

Kent's just finished working out when he gets a notification on his phone. He’s curious, because its the sound of a twitter notification, Kent walks over and picks his phone up. He nearly has a heart attack when he sees _derekmnurse_ has responded to the message Kent wrote up and sent the night before while he was emotional after finishing Nursey's book (the audiobook, that Nursey recorded himself, because it’s easier to just listen and follow). The way the book had ended had touched Kent deep, at his core, and he hadn't been able to help the response he had typed out in his raw state.

A little terrified but more eager than anything else, Kent opens the DM. He sees that Derek Nurse has not only responded with, "No, your thoughts are really good," (a compliment) but he's sent back an entire essay for Kent to respond to. Kent doesn't entirely know how he feels. He's been following Nursey for ages now, probably since they first met at Samwell. He hadn't given him much thought until Nursey started popping up on his feed with loud opinions and factual evidence. Kent would _never_ call himself a scholar, but here was a queer person of color, speaking up on issues that pertained to Kent. He was hooked from the first tweet.

He still doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to leave Nursey on read but he doesn't know how to respond just yet. Plus, Nursey's proposed points Kent hasn't thought of, which leads to more critical thinking. He's distracted as he feeds Kit and works on something to eat (that’s meal-plan appropriate), his mind working to try to come up with a proper response. He wants to send back something good, show Derek Nurse that he isn't just about hockey, but other, important, issues too.

Nursey is trying to keep his calm, but he's worried that maybe Kent sent the message last night by mistake. There was no way, right? That Kent hadn’t meant to send those long paragraphs to him? Nursey doesn't know. He has checked twitter three times in the last hour and seen in the last time that Kent's seen the message. He wonders, briefly, if he should have toned down a bit, because he gets more excited about his writing than anyone else and he didn't want to overwhelm Kent.

It's around six that twitter pings and Nursey scrambles for his phone, snatching it up to see if _this_ is the message he's looking for.

It is.

Kent's sent back a small paragraph, though, which has a tiny question at the end. _Could I call you some time to talk it out? Typing it all out is a little hard._ Nursey waits what he thinks is an appropriate amount of time before he responds with, "That's fine. Here's my number. I'm free the rest of the evening if you want to talk tonight."

Kent waits exactly an hour (to avoid seeming desperate or overly excited) before he makes the phone call. It rings, once, twice, three times, four. Kent's half expected the number to be fake, or out of service, but then a familiar, smooth voice comes from the other end.

"Derek Nurse."

Kent nearly dies when he hears it. It's like the audiobook but also _nothing_ like the audiobook. Nursey's voice is firm and calm. Kent's come to equate it with quiet nights indoors after hard practices and rough games. He's come to connect it to peace, because when they were on roadies and Kent sat alone after a win or a loss, he's used Derek Nurse's book to calm down. Put his earbuds in and let himself get lost in social issues.

"Hey, uh," he doesn't really know what he's saying, "This is Kent. Parson. Kent Parson."

Nursey thinks he might send a prayer up for letting him get this opportunity. He keeps a level head, even if all he wants to do is go straight into things because he never usually gets the opportunity to just _talk_ to people about things anymore. "Hey. How are you tonight?" he says because he needs to be civil and he has manners.

"I'm good. Alright. What about you?" Kent tries to do the same and settle into something normal.

"I'm fine," Nursey replies. They're silent for a few minutes, because now that they've done pleasantries they don't know where they should even start. Kent figures, since he made the call, he should begin and does his best to keep his voice level as he dives right into it.

"Tell me. Page 257. Personal experience or..."

They talk for hours. Literal hours. It's nearly two in the morning for Nursey when they finally get around to wrapping up a bit. By then they've moved on from Nursey's book, partially, into the references and resources Nursey pulled some of his inspirations from.

"I loved the poetry. It was really well thought out, and I don't usually do a bunch of poetry shit, but. It was really good," Kent says and Nursey hears him yawn.

Jokingly, Nursey says, "Shouldn't you be in bed, Mister Parson?"

The line goes quiet for a moment. Nursey hopes Kent is checking the time and not thinking about hanging up on him. He hears something mumbled, something along the lines of "But we were talking..." and he finds himself smiling, just a bit. It doesn't last for long though, because Nursey remembers that they barely know each other beyond college parties and Nursey's book (granted, Nursey has seen a couple Aces games, but only when they played the Rangers a few times).

"We could talk some more. Whenever you've got time. Plus you have my number now," Nursey says now.

Kent makes a noise of affirmation, and though it's kind of strange, Nursey can sort of see Kent nodding along.

"Yeah. Yeah I could."

Nursey's surprised that it's that easy for them to establish something that could easily become routine.

They exchange good nights and they hang up at 2:39. Nursey lays down in bed but he's not actually tired. He's lying there pretending to try to sleep for all of ten minutes before he's back up again and pulling out his laptop. He spends half the night googling games and plays and interviews, his intrigue for one Kent Parson having shot up immensely. Before, he sometimes spotted Kent on his twitter feed. Maybe liked a couple tweets, added a few emojis here and there in the subsections. Now he's running back through all of their interactions, and finds one in particular that sets his mind reeling.

There's a thread. It's got a tweet from an activist he and Kent both seem to follow. As he starts reading through the tweets, he finds himself in a bit of awe as he and Kent manage an entire dialogue regarding the contents of the tweet—Sports and Social Interactions. He and Kent go back and forth for an hour or so before they both stop, the conversation left unfinished (he ignores the people in between, especially one asshole that says that Kent needs to stick to hockey because he doesn't know anything). He wonders how he never noticed who he was talking to; the discussion is so informed and yet light hearted that it's easily one of Nursey's favourite twitter exchanges suddenly.

Kent, in Vegas, sits up for a few moments to stare down at the contact in his phone. It feels weird to type out "Derek Nurse" or "Nurse" (he remembers him being called "Nursey" in college but that feels too intimate for Kent to be able to use) so eventually he settles on just "Derek" with a book and pen emoji next to it. He finds himself smiling, softly, before he promptly falls asleep, because practice is at 6am the next day.

It's like a spark has been ignited, because over the course of the next few weeks, they end up talking a lot. Long text message conversations and phone calls about books and events turn into shorter, more personal conversations about daily life and each other. It's like a switch had been flipped; Nursey hadn't realized how much he wanted to talk to someone until he and Kent start texting and calling each other. Kent _knew_ he was lonely, he just didn't realize how _good_ it felt to talk to someone.

They're back and forth like that for four months before Nursey's agent calls him and asks if he's willing to fly out to Vegas to do a conference. Apparently, someone had been asking around for him at a local college. Nursey sees an opportunity when he gets the call and he agrees, but he doesn't tell Kent he's coming.

It's a seminar on queer spaces and social cues. Nursey gets to Vegas the following week after the call and has at least two days to set up some kind of presentation (which isn't hard) before he needs to be at his particular seminars. In that time, Nursey manages to get tickets to an Aces game. It's scheduled for the second night he's in Vegas, which works well, though he's sure he'll get back a bit late and be tired in the morning. Whatever, that's what coffee's for.

He's anxious. He caved at one point during one of his and Kent’s nightly calls and told Kent he was flying out to a conference but he hadn't exactly told Kent where. He had said in the west and left it at that. Kent has been curious, but he hasn't pushed the envelope (Nursey thinks Kent's afraid of pushing boundaries too much) (Kent wouldn't say he was wrong).

The night of the game, Nursey shows up in the T-Mobile Arena and heads towards his seat. Warm ups are starting, and Kent skates out onto the ice in his gear looking determined and fierce.

Now, Nursey's seen a lot of videos. But somehow they never really captured how… handsome Kent really is. Nursey thinks this might have been a bad idea. He thinks this might have been a _really_ bad idea.

But it's too late. He's sitting pretty close to the glass on the visiting team’s goal, and all it takes is one look from Kent, sweeping the arena to assess the crowd, for their eyes to meet.

Most of their communication up until then has been through text and phone calls and one particular Skype call that ended with Kit in Kent's lap taking up the camera. But somehow, there's an entire unspoken conversation that happens between them, from across the ice, beyond the glass.

 _You never said you'd be here._   
_I wanted to surprise you._   
_I'm glad you can see me play._   
_Will I see you after the game?_

Warm ups are over too soon for Kent. When the puck drops, he plays like his entire life depends on it, like this will be the last game of his career and he has to make it count. Because beyond the cheer of the crowd he can hear a voice, familiar, excited, but even, cheering for him, and Kent will be damned if he doesn't do his best.

The game goes into overtime but Kent sends the puck into the net for a game winning goal. The roar of the crowd is nearly deafening, and even with his teammates barreling into him for an excited celly Kent looks around for Nursey. He sees him there beyond the net, standing, a smile that could split his face in two plastered on and Kent feels like this could be the end for him and he would be fine with that.

Scratch that. He _wouldn't_ be.

Because he still needs to get close enough to hear Nursey. He still needs to be able to stand next to him, he needs to be able to breathe the same air and for them to be in front of each other, because then Kent will know it's all been _real._

Love is too strong a word for them right now. But like... like will do just fine.

The game is over and then there are interviews, and then Kent's heading out of the arena and looking for Nursey. He's already gotten a text message telling him where Nursey will be, and when he finally gets through a crowd asking for autographs and pictures, Kent finds him waiting.

This is the first time they've been in the same place—state, city, arena—since Nursey was in college. Things are so _different_ now; Kent hasn't thought about it much but the soft light of the street lamp gives Nursey something of a glow, soft, backed by far away billboards and lit up signs. He feels like he should have waited for this, just a bit, because he doesn't know if after a game was the best time for them to meet. But Nursey is smiling, god he's _smiling_ , and Kent wouldn't give this moment up for _anything._

They're maybe three feet apart. Kent looks up a bit, into Nursey's eyes, and they don't speak. Not for a beat, and then they're both opening their mouths.

"What are you-"

"You’re playing was-"

And they stop, and then they laugh. It's so easy and light; Kent hasn't felt like this in _ages_. Nursey is just glad that the smile on Kent's face looks as wonderful as he'd imagined.

"You first," Nursey nods. "This is your night."

Kent snorts, but it's not derisive or dismissive. "You never said you were coming to Vegas."

"I didn't?" Nursey pretends to be confused. It makes Kent's smile grow a bit. He feels like this should be more awkward than it is, and yet.

And yet.

"I said I was coming west."

"You didn't say to Vegas!" Kent crosses his arms, an eyebrow raised, and Nursey shrugs.

"Must've slipped my mind. I was so excited about coming," and here Nursey's eyes grow soft with an emotion Kent recognizes as a bit of worry. He's seen it before, knows that Nursey thinks that maybe Kent might not want him there. Kent makes a point of stepping a bit closer, further into Nursey’s space.

"Yeah? I'm excited you're here."

It's maybe meant to be innocent. Maybe it isn't. All Nursey knows is that Kent is glad to see him.

"So what brings you to Las Vegas, Mr. Nurse," Kent asks. Nursey hums, like he's thinking about his answer, before he gestures to the car not six feet away.

"Let's go talk somewhere else. I'll tell you why I'm here. You might even wanna come with."

They're silent most of the car ride, but it’s companionable. Nursey gets lost for maybe ten minutes, but Kent directs him to his hotel with ease. When they're back in the room, they settle in, and Nursey explains the conference panels he's running at the college.

"No fucking way." Kent's excitement is contagious. Nursey doesn't know how to hold his own in when Kent's eyes light up the way they do and he starts going on about tagging along.

"I've got an extra pass," Nursey says, kind of offhandedly, shrugging. "And no one else to go with in Vegas..."

"Is this your way of asking if I'll go with you?" Kent’s laughing, the kind of laugh that makes his eyes crinkle at the corner.

"Is it working?"

Kent laughs even more and says that yes, it is.

Their emotions die down slowly while they talk a bit about Nursey’s presentation. Kent's mostly tired, because he’s just played a pretty intense game. They don't get to do nearly as much talking as they want to, but it's also late, and Nursey won't send Kent home in an uber. Instead, he offers his bed.

"Not to do anything," Nursey says immediately, when Kent looks surprised, "Just. You're tired. Get some rest."

Kent doesn't want to put Nursey out, even says he'll get his own room, but Nursey will have none of it.

"Dude. It's fine." And how can Kent argue with that?

He’s asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. Nursey sits up for a while longer, working on a few last minute tiny details of his presentation, before he crawls into the bed too.

"Just sleep," he mumbles to himself, before he dozes off.

When they wake up at seven to the blaring alarm, it's to Nursey with his arm wrapped around Kent's waist, the two of them spooned together. Nursey kind of wishes this is an odd occurrence, but he went through college with a team that was more tactile than any group of people he's ever known in his life. Plus, Kent doesn't pull away. Not immediately.

Kent's surprised at how well he's slept. Nursey's surprised he didn't get elbowed for getting handsy (in the purest sense of the word). They get dressed (Kent always keeps a spare change of clothes in his duffel) and Nursey manages to get a toothbrush for Kent to brush his teeth with. They don't entirely acknowledge that they fit well together, in bed and in their morning routine.

Kent sits in with Nursey during the conference panels. He's surprised and flattered when Nursey lets him speak a few times, having adjusted parts of the presentation to account for Kent. They go to a few of the other panels with other guests and keynote speakers and they get lunch together, at a taco truck that Kent swears by. It's too easy to not acknowledge that they're good for each other, but they both think that maybe… Maybe they don't need to.

They can understand each other beyond words. It was weird, the way they clicked together; like the first moments were testing the waters and every moment after was falling, deeper and deeper.

Love is too strong of a word. They both know that it takes just a little more time to feel an emotion like that. They can't fix each other's problems magically and live happily ever after, because real life is different from a story or book.

But if you said like, well. Like would do just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe I'll write a sequel.


End file.
